Power restored in many parts of Gurugram after strike over private licence triggered blackouts

Several residents, however, complained that despite the restoration, the supply was suffering from severe low voltage, leaving them unable to operate household appliances or run water pumps.

Power supply has been restored to many parts of Gurugram following widespread blackouts triggered by a strike by state power department employees against a regulatory order granting a 25-year parallel distribution licence to a private firm in Gurugram and Nuh, district officials said on Friday.

Gurugram: Commuters use a foot overbridge amid smog, in Gurugram. (PTI)

Several residents, however, complained that despite the restoration, the supply was suffering from severe low voltage, leaving them unable to operate household appliances or run water pumps.

Power grid workers and engineers have been on a 72-hour strike starting 10 pm Wednesday to protest an order by the Haryana Electricity Regulatory Commission (HERC) granting a 25-year parallel distribution license to a private firm, Eleven Power Private Limited, in Gurugram and Nuh.

The city saw blackouts lasting nearly 24 hours after striking workers of the Dakshin Haryana Bijli Vitran Nigam (DHBVN) shut down feeders or refused to repair routine line faults.

In Sector 10’s Hari Nagar, angry residents went to the residence of Haryana minister Rao Narbir Singh around 9:30 pm on Thursday after DHBVN officials stopped answering phones, said local resident Anita Yadav.

The minister wasn’t home. “We vented our ire and asked his aides to intervene to get the power supply restored in our area,” she said.

Sumit Pradhan, president of the Hari Nagar Residents’ Welfare Association, said power was restored within 30 minutes of residents raising the issue at the minister’s residence. “Not a single drop of water was available in our homes, forcing people to buy packaged drinking water,” he said.

Dinesh Vashist, former president of Sector-3, 5 and 6 resident welfare associations, said power supply in their area was restored after midnight, 26 hours after the outage. Officials said the power disruption was due to a fault in a main high-tension feeder cable supplying power from substation in Palam Vihar which wasn’t repaired till late evening.

In some areas of old Gurugram, DHBVN employees restored power supply after the police approached them and warned that they could face legal action if the protests by residents who had blocked roads at two locations against the outage turned violent.

Four major power unions including the Haryana Power Engineers Association and the All Haryana Power Corporation Workers Union called the strike against the regulator’s decision in Gurugram, alleging that parallel licensing was a back-door step toward privatisation that would threaten public sector jobs.

Chief minister Nayab Singh Saini and energy minister Anil Vij said the state government had no role in the regulator’s decision and would appeal the HERC order to the Appellate Tribunal for Electricity within a week. At a review meeting, Saini said the government was ready to engage lawyers trusted by the power unions to pursue the case and reiterated that the government’s doors are always open for dialogue.

Eleven Power, chaired by Sunil Sachdeva, is the first private player granted a parallel power distribution licence in Haryana. The firm plans to invest ₹4,716 crore over five years to build a parallel network, allowing over 8.3 lakh consumers to choose between the private firm and state-run DHBVN.